Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the “Sounds of the Future”.
You are going to spend plenty of time over the next few days seeing and hearing what we are doing with our software products to make them work better for you. You will have dedicated time with some of the most talented technologists in the industry, who are all ready, and mostly willing, to hang on your every word of feedback. But it's my job to set the scene for something else we will be showing you - our vision of the Future of IP.
But, before we look into the future, let’s take a quick look into the past…In October 2015 I took the role of CEO. Before that I had spent almost 16 years in the IP Industry with CPA Global. As you can see, it hasn’t been kind…
There are many reasons to be persuaded to take the role of CEO at a successful global company. I have to tell you that for me it was very simple. I took this role for one reason and one reason only. The opportunity to transform the industry and create the Future of IP. I have long felt that the industry has been poorly served by technology, and I don't exclude us from that criticism. Prior to arriving at CPA Global, I played my part in the UK Financial Services' rapid technology-led revolution. That is a revolution that has yet to happen to IP.
It’s ironic because IP has played a central role in the innovation industry for centuries now, and yet is probably the last major industry yet to fully benefit from the disruptive effects of technology. Indeed, a recent survey we carried out indicates that you feel that this is still the case.
In this survey, we asked our customers whether you feel the IP Industry is more or less innovative than other industries. Of course, many of you won’t have worked in other industries – IP is a lifetime’s work! Even so, two thirds of you feel that it is less or, at best, no more innovative than other industries.
The reality is that given the rapid advancement in technology over the last 5 – 10 years, your industry, the innovation industry, has not benefited as much as it should or could.
What impact has that had? I have called these two challenges the big data challenge……and the task execution challenge.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the crux of it. I have set CPA Global on a mission to solve these two fundamental problems and bring about the Future of IP. Well, I believe that there are two structural challenges that negatively affect the way you work, hold you back and hinder you from achieving your objectives.
The big data challenge is caused by the disaggregated, non-standardised data environment in which you operate. Critical data is held in multiple formats in different languages, in over 200 patent and trademark office data sets across the globe.
This makes getting actionable information, in the form you need it, when you need it, expensive, slow or impossible. This problem has starved IP decision-makers of the insight and information needed to make high quality decisions. We have big plans for this, and Tyron will be sharing these with you later in the conference.
Secondly, the IP task execution challenge is caused by the highly complex, quasi-legal, multi-jurisdictional environment in which you have to operate in to get things done. Not only is it hugely complex, the cost of getting it wrong is extreme.
Executing on time critical tasks safely, securely and efficiently across the globe is in CPA Global’s DNA from our heritage as a renewals provider. Our ambition is to make all of the administrative tasks along the ideas lifecycle seem effortless to you, but at the same time give you full transparency and control and, ultimately, peace of mind.
What have we been doing since I became CEO to address these challenges and realise this ambition? Firstly, we undertook some major customer research that was designed to bring our customers’ priorities into the centre of our plans for industry transformation.
You told us how you wanted us to approach these big problems. Here’s what you said:
- Be people focussed - your people are your best asset
- Keep it simple - don't overreach, or over engineer
- Be the glue that joins up disparate processes and systems
- Demonstrate synergy between your products
- Empower us, don't replace us (or disrupt us!)
We also looked at those areas of the IP process that we felt most qualified to help you with:
- Providing the right information, at the right time, in the right way to enable better decisions
- Providing tightly integrated, effortless solutions for the key external tasks in the IP process
- Searching
- Filing
- Renewal
- Docketing and data verification
- External data maintenance and recordal
- Providing time-saving integration with your own technology, eliminating as much of your administrative overhead as we can
Our unrelenting focus since then has been on building this vision. Most importantly, we acquired Innography. The incredible folks at Innography have been working on the future of IP in terms of information and insight for many years and we are delighted to bring them into our family.
We have delivered the first of our new platform-based services – CPA Global FILE - more to come on that exciting news later in the conference. We have started the development of the platform-based versions of our existing Renew and Search services.
We have developed new roadmaps and increased investment across all of our software products that are focussed around our customer's priorities. And what is this for? Well, for us it's very simple...
It's all about ideas…
You know - I was at Disney’s Epcot in Orlando recently with my kids. My favourite ride in the whole of Disney World is Spaceship Earth, the big ball thing. Who has been on that ride? Well, that ride is all about progress through innovation. Progress through ideas…
And ideas are what has taken mankind from living in caves, to reaching the moon. From drawing on cave walls to communicating across the world instantly. From cave walls to papyrus to books to computers to the internet and beyond.. It's a remarkable story and we all have the privilege to at be the very heart of it. Our belief at CPA Global is that ideas change the world and our purpose is to help you change the way you manage them. It's a responsibility we take very seriously.
